


Anything Except Temptation

by SingingShantiesAllTheWay



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Asexual Character, Masturbation, Other, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:40:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23265577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SingingShantiesAllTheWay/pseuds/SingingShantiesAllTheWay
Summary: Wilde needs to relax with some alone time.Sasha needs to somehow get the hell out of his room without being noticed.Both of them get what they need. Er. Eventually, and certainly not at the same time.
Relationships: Sasha Racket & Oscar Wilde
Comments: 14
Kudos: 71





	Anything Except Temptation

**Author's Note:**

> Vagueness about setting is intentional, and as with so many fan-made works, adherence to canon is slippery at best. Let us, gentle reader, assume a certain degree of hand-waved time and events at some point before Rome, because dammit Alex that one HURT and filling in some blanks with Sasha makes the ache somewhat less, yes? Yes.
> 
> Let us begin.

Sasha was not ignorant of the essential necessities of the human condition. The, er… adult affections of the people around her during her formative years was never a secret, at least insofar as the basic mechanics were concerned. The theory behind them, anyway. Hypothetically speaking.

In point of fact, she had no first- or even second-person experience of such things. Sasha had done her assiduous best to avoid any demonstration of the practicalities, and Sasha’s best was quite convincing. It was difficult to maintain one’s ardour when confronted with a murderously sharp dagger held to one's throat in unfriendly warning.

One might be forgiven for assuming that traveling with a mercenary company should swiftly have eliminated any remaining mysteries. The London and Other London Outstanding Mercenary Group (formerly the London Rangers _We’re Still Working on the Name_ ) had however been remarkably polite when it came to the, well, _coarser_ aspects of life. Zolf never seemed to have any inclinations whatsoever, Hamid was far too well-bred to even suggest the merest implication of a whisper that he was aware of that sort of thing, and while Bertie’s preferences were obvious, he’d never _really_ brought them home, as it were. Later, Grizzop appeared to have about the same amount of interest as Zolf, and while Azu was unquestionably the most loving person Sasha had ever met, it was not the sort of love that seemed in any way _explicit_.

For her part, it simply never occurred to Sasha to consider any of them in that context. She’d never yet met a person that elicited any reaction beyond the perfectly platonic, however else she might feel about them.

Sasha wasn’t particularly fussed about it. From what she’d witnessed, those sorts of entanglements always seemed to be more trouble than they were worth. Look at poor Hamid! That Liliana person had wounded him deeply (Sasha’s fingers twitched toward her daggers every time she thought about it). And _Wilde_ . Don’t even _mention_ Wilde. The first time they’d ever _met_ the man, the result had been Bertie going off with him, and then newspapers all over the _world_ knew what had happened and laughed at him about it and that had meant problems for the whole _party_ and what was the _point?_

Not that Bertie hadn’t deserved the mockery. Just maybe not for _that_.

Anway, yeah. Yeah. _Definitely_ more trouble than it was worth.

The fact was that Sasha rarely considered matters of intimacy, if at all, and nothing could have been further from her mind as she prowled through the small, decently-appointed, two-story house that was the temporary headquarters for the LOLOMG. Having a Meritocratic agent semi-attached to the party was frequently annoying, but also had its occasional benefits, one of which was better funding for living quarters.

The house was currently empty, the remainder of the group having left just after dawn to accomplish various tasks before the oppressive heat of midday had a chance to settle in. They’d learned over the last little while that once the sun was well and truly up, there was no point trying to do anything but sit somewhere shaded and move as little as possible until the damn thing set again.

Grizzop was putting out feelers with the local temples, seeking allies and information; Hamid and Azu were sharing the task of replenishing supplies from the market, and Wilde had been gone for over a day now pursuing his own contacts for much the same reason as Grizzop. 

Sasha had volunteered to stay behind and keep an eye on things at the house. They were not without enemies and observers, after all, and it was more than ever important to stay cautious. In aid of that, Sasha was slinking along the halls and through each room, keeping to the shadows, silent as a ghost. It never hurt to keep up one’s skills.

She finished her thorough examination of every corner and cubby of the downstairs, and headed to the second floor to continue her rounds. If she included everyone else’s bedrooms in her circuit of the house, well, call it an overabundance of caution. Sasha was meant to be making sure there were no hostile agents threatening the group. What if she skipped a room, and it turned out it was _that room_ where somebody was hiding? Sasha was nothing if not diligent.

It was certainly not _nosiness_. Perish the thought.

Sasha flowed through the room that Hamid shared with Grizzop like… like a liquid cat, on oiled ball bearings, over a greased fence, yeah, to steal a- a _marinated pork loin_ from the oblivious neighbor’s barbeque with no-one the wiser. It was a fascinating exploration, full of the scent of the leather and steel of Grizzop’s armor mixed with whatever it was that Hamid put in his hair, something peppery and sweet and familiar. It was undecorated, but what of their belongings Hamid and Grizzop didn’t need to take with them were present, lending at least a little personality to their impermanent living space. There was nothing unexpected here.

The room she and Azu shared got only a cursory glance (she’d _know_ if anybody was in there, of course). Sasha owned nothing that did not remain on her person at all times, but Azu had set up some personal things - a couple of trinkets arranged on the windowsill; a spare cloak, hand-woven of a dozen different shades of pink, hung on the wall over her bed - that made the small room seem not so much crowded as cozy and welcoming.

That left the room at the end of the hall: Wilde’s, which doubled as his bedroom and office together, cramped but sufficient to his needs.

Sasha was disappointed to discover that the lock did not, in fact, require picking (solely to keep in practice, of course). The door was as noiseless on its hinges as Sasha was on her feet, and she slipped through and closed it behind her.

It _was_ cramped. A tall wardrobe rested flush beside the single window at the far end of the room, the curtain rod of which had been press-ganged into use for hanging clothes. The bed had been pushed up against one wall to make room for the huge desk Wilde had appropriated from downstairs. This was already covered with an untidy mess of newspapers, envelopes, loose papers, pens, multiple inkwells, a couple of journals, a large leather-bound ledger, and other assorted detritus.

It was tremendously cluttered. It would take some time to effectively look everything over… to ensure there were no enemy agents hiding amongst the unruly mess, of course. She had time, though. Wilde was generally gone for a couple of days or longer when he went off on his occasional reconnaissance.

Sasha hesitated, listening for other sounds from throughout the house, then slunk over to the desk. With delicate fingers, she lifted the cover of one of the journals to peer at the pages beneath. The handwriting that flowed across the paper was elegant, precise, and completely impossible to read. Wilde, the bastard, wrote with perfect penmanship and in code.

Sasha closed the journal again and turned her attention to a sheaf of papers balanced precariously across two empty inkwells. These were typed, rather than handwritten, and appeared to be official communiqués, almost certainly from some Meritocratic office elsewhere. Sasha squinted at the text, frustrated by the fact that it wasn’t in English. Damn.

The ledger _was_ in English, but was in a shorthand every bit as incomprehensible as the journal had been. Annoyed with the dearth of interesting information thus far, Sasha moved on to the pile of newspapers in the chair’s seat when she froze, quivering on the edge of her nerves.

_Footsteps_.

That Sasha recognized the soft tread approaching the staircase from the side door downstairs did not in any way lessen the swift rush of fight-or-flight adrenaline through her system.

Wilde had returned, far earlier than she’d anticipated.

Sasha would have preferred a hostile intruder, a whole _gang_ of lads or blokes to fight, to the room’s actual resident. She could’ve enjoyed a whole morning picking them off one by one, but no. _Of course_ it had to be bloody _Wilde_ , didn’t it? Sasha dropped the newspaper she was holding back onto the stack, desperately righted the whole haphazard pile of them when they tried to tip over, then ran through her options as the bottom stairstep creaked.

Thinking about it later, Sasha was never sure why she chose the course of action that she did. Wilde was still essentially downstairs, and she was _incredibly_ good, the _best_ , maybe, at just _not being noticed_ , right? Sasha could have been out of Wilde’s room and into her own in a flash with the door closed behind her and Wilde none the wiser. Failing that, she could have just stayed put and explained _why_ she was in his bedroom. Surely keeping watch for intruders was enough justification, right? And it wasn’t like she’d _moved_ his papers. Just, you know, _glanced_ at them. And Wilde didn’t have to know that part.

Inexplicably, however, she did neither of those things.

Instead, Sasha bolted for the far end of the room, opened the wardrobe door just enough to let her slip through, swore under her breath when it was too full of _more gods-damned paperwork_ to accommodate so much as another napkin, and frantically clambered up on top of it instead.

The thing was enormous, as was so much of the furniture in this house, and hadn’t yet been colonized by the apparently endless flood of documentation that was gradually devouring the rest of the room. There was a small trunk (locked, part of her noted, and marked it as a possible later target. For practice), a soft parcel that might have been a bag of holding, and a pair of shoes, all hidden by the skillfully-carved bolection moulding that crowned the front of the wardrobe.

Sasha was a little surprised by how easily she was able to flatten herself down into - she hoped - invisibility behind the same decorative carving.

She had just settled into stillness and quelled her breathing when Wilde’s tread reached the end of the hallway. Sasha couldn’t see whether he'd opened the door without turning her head and potentially making noise, but the slight increase in the clarity and volume of his footfalls told her what she needed to know.

The door latch clicked when Wilde closed it behind him, and she heard the sound of a key turning in the lock. There was a pause during which Wilde did not move, and Sasha held her breath. Had he seen her? Heard her? Had she left some evidence of her presence that she’d neglected in her rush? Panic was beginning to claw its way up her throat again when Wilde finally let out a deep sigh and stepped away from the door.

Sasha heard the rustle of his clothing as Wilde moved. There was a pause, followed by two dull thuds, and it took her a moment to realize that he had taken off his shoes, letting them fall to the floor. The rustling was explained when he moved into view through the sliver of space between two curlicue flourishes in the carving.

Wilde looked weary, as he always did these days. His cravat was untied, his vest unbuttoned and his shirt untucked. While Sasha struggled to reconcile contradictory impulses to both continue watching and look away, Wilde tugged the scarf free of his neck and tossed it carelessly to the side. The vest followed, and Wilde set about unbuttoning his shirt with swift and nimble fingers.

Sasha’s admittedly-underdeveloped sense of decency lost the war to far more thoroughly cultivated curiosity. She’d always been a sucker for conspicuously dextrous hands.

Wilde made quick work of the buttons and turned his back on the wardrobe as he shrugged out of his shirt. It slipped down over his shoulders - surprisingly broad, for such a slender man - and caught at his elbows while he unfastened the cuffs. Sasha was momentarily distracted by the glitter of cufflinks- ( _could probably get a fair bit o'gold for those on the open market_ )- before they disappeared from view.

What Sasha could see of Wilde's back was lean, the ridges of his shoulder blades prominent beneath his pale skin. The faint line of a scar just peeked over the shirt's collar where it loosely rested against the middle of his back.

He finished with his cuffs, and the shirt slid to the floor, joining its discarded fellows in an untidy heap. The bed creaked when Wilde sat down on the edge and leaned forward. He braced his elbows on his knees and rested his head in his palms, his long fingers jutting up through his hair like an untidy crown.

He sat that way for a minute or two that for Sasha, uncomfortably positioned atop the wardrobe, stretched into an unbearable eternity. Finally, Wilde's shoulders slumped. He dragged his hands down over his face and straightened, and stared into the middle distance, hands folded in front of his mouth as though in prayer.

Sasha studied his face from her vantage point of quasi-invisibility. He was, she supposed, probably attractive (certainly loads of other people appeared to think so, although honestly she couldn't see what all the fuss was about). Wilde's large eyes caught the filtered sunlight through the window and seemed to shift between hazel and green. His nose had been broken at some point- Sasha knew what a busted nose looked like, and she noted the slightest crooked flaw where it hadn't quite healed correctly. He had a generous mouth half-hidden behind his hands, his full lower lip set in a permanent, mild pout. All things considered, there were worse things to be stuck staring at indefinitely.

Wilde finally stirred. He stood, and Sasha held her breath as he crossed the room to brush aside clothes and curtains to glance outside. She felt certain the adrenaline-laced pounding of her heart must _surely_ be audible in the room's stillness, but Wilde did not look up.

"Maybe an hour," he murmured. He let the window coverings fall back into place and returned to the bed, and collapsed onto it with a soft groan. Lying on his back, Wilde fell into stillness to rival Sasha's.

Oh good. Sasha didn't sigh with relief but she would have if she wasn't trying to remain unnoticed. If Wilde was going to sleep (for once. The man appeared to be fueled purely by spite and sarcasm) she could sneak out once he was deeply slumbering. Easiest thing in the world. All she had to do was wait. Maybe study that locked chest a little more closely to pass the time.

Sasha was considering whether or not she could get the lock picked with Wilde in the room- purely for the challenge, of course- when another rustle of cloth caught her attention.

She looked up and nearly choked.

Wilde was still lying on his back, but his hands had strayed to his hips, where they were deftly unlacing the front of his trousers. Once again Sasha's mind played host to a brief battle of opposing impulses. Watching his hands, the nimble grace of his fingers, she caved to the inevitable and did not look away.

Wilde slid his hands down over his pelvis, pushing the fabric of his trousers ahead of them. He lifted his hips a bit, just enough to let the bunched cloth pass underneath, and Sasha caught a brief glimpse of the curve of his ass before he fell back again.

He appeared content to let this be the extent of his disrobing. Sasha watched Wilde’s hands glide back up over his narrow hips. He flattened one palm low on his abdomen; the other hand trailed further to slip lightly over his chest and up along the pale column of his throat, chin lifted to expose the full length of his neck to his own touch. She could hear the slight intake of breath as he did so, and tipped her head just a little, puzzled. Was that particularly sensitive, right there? Sasha’d never noticed, but maybe she’d just not been paying attention. One hand strayed soundlessly up to glide an experimental fingertip over the same place on her own throat, and Sasha frowned. Nope. Just felt like her hand, nothing special or different. Huh.

Wilde’s hands both rested on his abdomen now, flat-palmed. The tips of his thumbs just touched together; his elegant fingers were splayed downward to frame the softly-curved shape of his cock. It lay for the moment limp, angled up toward one hip, and Sasha, having decided that if she had seen this much she may as well see it through, was further nonplussed. Wilde’s was the first set of male genitalia that she’d seen in the wild- in the flesh- in person, as it were, and the reality of it wasn’t terribly frightening or appealing, either one.

It was _interesting_ , though. Sasha was currently ticking off answers to a handful of lingering questions. That lads - well, and ladies too - occasionally took time for solitary activities wasn’t any kind of revelation. But it was one thing to be aware in the abstract; it was something else entirely to witness a demonstration.

Wilde’s hands came together. He curved one downward to cradle the (frankly bizarre-looking) pouch of his scrotum, delicately stroking with the lightest of touches. With his other hand, Wilde grazed his fingertips along the soft length of his cock; his chest rose as he drew in a swift breath at the touch of his own hands. Sasha was fascinated to see the limp flesh beginning to swell in response to that touch (and there was another question answered).

Another easy, gentle glide of Wilde’s fingertips along his shaft encouraged the gradual growth. He let out a slow breath, drew in another one, continued the unhurried slide of fingertips along the underside of his growing erection.

From her vantage point, Sasha could actually see the rhythm of Wilde’s pulse, because his cock gently twitched with it at every heartbeat. It had by now achieved a shape and proportion that finally resembled the graffiti Sasha had inevitably encountered over the years, resolving another minor point of confusion. 

Wilde curved a hand around his shaft, slender fingers loosely caging it while he lightly ran the pad of his thumb over the tip. It sent a full-body shiver rioting over Wilde’s skin, and he drew in another soft gasp, closed his eyes, and let his head fall back onto the pillow.

He looked, Sasha thought, like some painting in one of the posh museums like what Bertie’s family stored their stuff in. Wilde’s loose, dark hair fell over the pillow _just so_ , and the divided rays of sunlight shining softly past the curtains bathed his profile in warm gold. It kissed his long eyelashes and softened his full lips, which were slightly parted to allow a long, quivering exhalation. It illuminated his chest in the same golden light, revealing the sharp definition of his collarbones, the rounded shapes of muscle, the shadowed, shallow indentations between his ribs which grew more pronounced with the next breath inhaled.

He looked like a gods-damned work of art.

_That_ Sasha could appreciate. Art was _valuable_. She’d spent a lot of time learning from Mr. Gussett how to appraise statues and paintings, how to discuss the quality and value of them, what to look for to identify counterfeits and fakes. Sasha knew art when she saw it, and right now it was lying in dissipated seminudity across the room from her.

Sasha swept her gaze from Wilde's face down his body, fascinated despite herself by what was happening between his thighs. His cock was entirely firm now, had gained definition and a flush of red. He held it with one hand, still loosely; his other hand rested between his legs, framing the base of his shaft with the curve between his thumb and forefinger. His long fingers curled from there down over his balls to gently stroke.

Wilde’s eyes opened a fraction and caught a glitter of sunlight as he swept the hand on his cock frictionlessly upward from its base. He passed his thumb again over the swollen tip, and Sasha saw moisture glistening in its wake. That was curious. She narrowed her eyes, intrigued.

His hand swept down again, revealing more of the shaft for a second or two before his elegant fingers swallowed it again in another smooth, slow upward glide. As Sasha watched from her hiding place, this became a pattern, a rhythm that Wilde settled into easily. This had a definite sense of the familiar, of something habitual. Wilde clearly knew his body, knew where to touch and when, understood exactly what pace to take with the glide of palm and fingers along the length of his rigid cock - when to speed up, when to slow down.

Wilde's breathing was growing quicker. Shallower. His lips were parted further than they had been, and his breath carried an occasional whimper or nearly-silent moan. He replaced one hand with the other; the one that had been wrapped around his cock fisted now in the bedclothes.

The rhythm of his stroking was growing more erratic, as though Wilde's focus was fracturing. Maybe it was. Sasha wondered briefly if Wilde was in _pain_ \- his features had tightened and those sounds he was making couldn’t be _normal_ , could they? Should- should she get _help_? What if something was going wrong? ...and how would she possibly know even if it was?

Wilde’s heels dug into the mattress, bare toes splayed against the footboard as he braced. Only the very top of his thighs were visible, his trousers still covering most of his legs, but where they were bared Sasha could see the clear definition of taut and straining muscle.

Wilde had pressed his head back into the pillow now, his full lower lip caught in his teeth, and he made a breathless, high, keening sound. There was no rhythm remaining to the movement of his hand over his cock - there was no grace, no delicacy, just desperate, rapid strokes from base to tip to base to tip to base-

The keening whimper became an abrupt inhalation and then a breathy, hoarse cry. Sasha stared wide-eyed and startled as Wilde’s back arched. His hips bucked, thrusting the rigid length of his cock through the tight grip of his hand, and there was- there was some kind of _spasm_ -

Wilde hung there immobile save for a full-body trembling, every visible muscle quivering and tight. His hand, Sasha noted, was glistening with moisture; so was his abdomen, in an erratic line from his navel to where his cock still twitched.

Ah. There was another question answered. There weren’t many of them left.

Wilde collapsed, his hand falling limply to the side. He looked more relaxed in this moment than Sasha could ever remember seeing him. His chest rose and fell with rapid, shallow breaths, and Sasha could faintly see the thrum of his pulse pounding in his throat. He was smiling faintly, a soft and genuine thing rather than the sardonic twist of his mouth that he habitually wore. It was a good look for him.

A sudden door slammed, and voices floated up from downstairs: Azu and Hamid back from the market, laughing about some shared joke, and Wilde sat abruptly upright. The relaxed calm evaporated from Wilde’s demeanor like breath from one of Sasha’s dagger blades.

Sasha felt abruptly sorry for him. That he desperately needed the relief he'd just abandoned was obvious; she found herself wishing Hamid and Azu had taken more time shopping. Wilde found a handkerchief and perfunctorily cleaned up before tucking himself back into his trousers and struggling into the discarded shirt and vest. He’d regained his usual supercilious smirk by the time he slipped back into his shoes.

Sasha waited until she heard his footfalls reach the bottom of the stairs before she slithered noiselessly down from her perch. She padded to his door and through it; closed it silently behind herself; slipped down the hall to her shared bedroom. From there, getting out the window and up onto the roof was child's play, and Sasha needed the time alone. This was a lot to think about, and anyway she was pretty sure that if she had to face Wilde right now she'd melt through the floor out of sheer embarrassment.

For now, a little distance was probably for the best. Sasha sat on the roof in the bright sunlight, flipping a dagger over and over in her hand, and pondered the morning's inadvertent lessons.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[ART] Anything Except Temptation](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23276431) by [areyouokaypanda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/areyouokaypanda/pseuds/areyouokaypanda)
  * [Anything Except Temptation [podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24060394) by [KD reads (KDHeart)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KDHeart/pseuds/KD%20reads)




End file.
